The people running Facebook are an ambitious crew; they see Facebook as a successor to Google in many respects. In fact many of the executives used to work at Google, including CTO Bret Taylor, COO Sheryl Sandberg, Advertising VP David Fischer and Communications VP Elliot Schrage, among others.

However as a search property Facebook has, in the past, been almost unusable and no threat to Google or any other search engine. In fact, it has been (so far) a missed opportunity for Facebook partner and investor Microsoft. But Microsoft’s Bing is becoming more prominent on Facebook and the site itself has tried to improve search.

Now the AllFacebook Blog declares that Facebook has declared “war” on Google with an “Open Graph Search Engine” that will create a semantic index of the web (via the Like button) and (eventually) make Facebook search better than Google. Have we thus entered the era of “Facebook SEO”? Should publishers and marketers be optimizing sites for Facebook search and SEO?

Over the past year Facebook has seen growth in search query volumes and has started to approach AOL in terms of overall query volume share, according to comScore. And certainly Facebook search has considerable potential — but that’s still what it is: potential.

AllFacebook shows that non-Facebook sites are now starting to appear and rank in “Facebook” results (as opposed to “Web Results”), as though they were internal Facebook pages — based on how many “Likes” they have:

This is interesting and may begin to create some new user behavior at Facebook, and among publishers/marketers. But Facebook has a long way to go before it can effectively replace Google or any other search engine.

In general the search user experience on Facebook is ambiguous and cluttered. (Marty Weintraub at aimClear details “Facebook Ranking Factors,” which illustrate some of the confusion in Facebook results.) In addition the information available via Facebook search (as opposed to Bing on Facebook) is quite thin right now.

Google, Yahoo and Bing (proper) provide a much more coherent and complete user experience when people really need information.

Has Facebook become an important — even critical — marketing vehicle and promotional tool? Absolutely. Is its search engine going to challenge Google in the near term? Not a chance — at least not without radical change and improvement.

As Danny said to me in an email and a comment on the aimClear blog, “If this is declaring war on Google, Facebook�s starting out by sending a boat against a battle fleet.”

Why is it that the SEO industry is constantly looking for something, anything to save it from itself? Why is the sky always falling?

Why do we always doubt our methods? Even if our methods are ethical and effective, we're still always looking for something new, something better and more noble than lowly SEO. What is wrong with us?

Is it because we can't take the heat from the naysayers? Is it because we're nomads and we can't stay in one place for too long? Are we that insecure? Is it that we constantly need to experiment and develop new ideas? I'd say the answer is ‘yes' to all of those questions.

The real reason we're always looking to rename what we do, though, is that we're never satisfied with what we have.

Content marketing is the perfect example.

Age of Discontent

Our industry is going through a rough patch. SEO professionals are quick to put themselves down, and they're even quicker to put others down.

Even when two SEO professionals use the exact same strategies, they'll simply call what they're doing by another name to separate themselves from the pack. Or they'll add another strategy to their SEO playbook and announce that they're better than the next guy.

SEO is SEO and link building is link building. SEO is not content marketing and link building is not relationship building (I'm also sick to death of "relationship building").

I'm not saying that content marketing doesn't have its place, because it does.

But the goal of SEO is to boost traffic and conversion through higher search engine rankings, which results in more money coming in. SEO means boosting search rankings.

Content marketing is about getting your name out there and getting clicks, resulting in new leads and more money. It's not about search rankings.

An SEO practitioner, therefore, isn't a content marketer. And a content marketer isn't an SEO practitioner.

And I'm sick to death of SEO professionals despising themselves into becoming something "more" than someone who just does SEO. Being an SEO pro is awesome!

We should love that we don't have to stoop to the level of content marketing because we don't need it. We get our leads from the search engines because we're badass SEO professionals!

The Overlap Zone

Sure, there is some overlap between link building, SEO, and content marketing.

In any given content marketing-driven guest post, you'll probably get a great link for your company. That should be one of the goals of your content. It will probably be a branded link, though, and the content itself will directly promote your company or your values. That's all fine and good, but that's not the same as link building.

Great link building guest posts, similarly, can boast some of the same qualities as content marketing. It's great content that happens to include a link.

A link building guest post, though, is much more diverse – it's not just trying to get a name out there and increase brand visibility. It's valuable content, for sure, but it doesn't exist just for branding purposes.

The perfect link building guest post makes the reader want to click through to the link in the bio. The perfect content marketing guest post contains a great link that boosts search rankings. Neither one of those things is reliable, and therefore they serve different purposes – but there is some overlap.

SEO vs. Content Marketing

What you're reading right now is a piece of content marketing. I'm writing on behalf of my company, not for the link, but because I want you to associate my opinion with my company.

If you agree or like what I have to say, you'll remember my name or click the link in my bio. If I make you angry enough you'll remember my name and/or click the link in my bio.

I'm not doing this to increase my company's search rankings. I am a link builder, but this is a pure content marketing effort.

See? SEO and content marketing can cross over sometimes, but I'm not a content marketer. I'm a link builder.

Let's take a look at the differences:

GoalsSEO, link building in particular, aims to increase traffic and conversions to websites through higher search rankings. Higher search rankings make sites more visible in the SERPs, generate more traffic and generate more income.Content marketing exists to build up brands. It makes them more visible on the Internet, but not through search rankings. Content marketing is about name recognition.ApproachProper link building uses various kinds of links on relevant websites to boost search rankings. These links should be placed on websites that are relevant to your niche, that real humans browse, and any content surrounding the link should be high quality, relevant and created by humans. Link building can take many forms, such as resource links and guest posting. It is more about the link itself than self-promotion. But link building is about the links and the effect of those links on the SERPs.Content marketing also takes a human approach, but it is limited to content. Infographics, video, and blog posts can all be used for content marketing. The content must be high quality and discuss your brand's industry, and it might discuss your brand directly. It is about self-promotion, not a hyperlink (and subsequent search ranking increase).ResultsThe results of any good SEO effort are increased search rankings – the first page of Google. People who aren't familiar with your brand are going to find you listed for your keywords and click on through. That equals conversions, which equal money.The result of any good content marketing effort is brand awareness. The next time a consumer thinks of your industry, hopefully they'll think of you first when they go to make a purchase. They also might click through directly from your content. Conversions from the content means more money.Be Proud of What You Do

Before you assail me for being a hater, remember that I'm engaging in content marketing right now, I love the stuff.

What I do hate is the fact that so many SEO professionals are trying to rebrand themselves or overextend themselves because SEO is a dirty word to some people. Let's have some pride!

I'm a link builder. Some of you are SEO pros as well. SEO is just part of any brand's marketing strategy, but that's what we specialize in.

We need to concentrate on building great links and optimizing web pages because we're doing great work. We don't need to rebrand ourselves and we don't need to stop building links.

SEO isn't content marketing and content marketing isn't SEO. There's some potentially great crossover there, but one is not a replacement for the other.

More than six million campaigns, or 75 percent, have been upgraded to AdWords Enhanced Campaigns so far and Google expects to have the remainder of its advertising partners, and their respective campaigns, switched over by the end of this month.

CEO Larry Page calls it "the biggest ever change to AdWords," as the company reported $3.23 billion in net income on $14.1 billion in revenue during the second quarter. Digital advertising has developed with specific features tailored for desktop and mobile, Page says on the earnings call with investors. "This made arduous work for advertisers and agencies and meant mobile opportunities often got missed," he adds.

"I think it's important to keep in mind that Enhanced Campaigns are the largest change we've made in AdWords ever, and it was done pretty quickly…We changed tremendous amounts in how our teams operate, how our advertisers operate, how everyone buys those ads, what the users see, and we've done it pretty well," he continues later in the call.

Nikesh Arora, SVP and chief business officer at Google, shares Page's enthusiasm for the "big, long-term bet that is designed to help advertisers more easily reach customers across devices with the right message, all within one campaign." He adds that Pizza Hut has seen its return on investment from mobile increase by 20 percent.

"They found that mobile click-through rate has increased by more than 60 percent while that cost per order on smartphones has dropped by 17 percent. We believe Enhanced Campaigns does set up our clients and our business really well for the long-term and the move towards a constantly connected world goes far beyond just direct response and transactional marketing," Arora continues.

"As many advertisers have discovered that they were not addressing the mobile opportunity appropriately, they discovered new inventory, they discovered better ROI, and better conversion," he said. "As we get better in terms of being able to provide more targeting and more comprehensive ad solutions for mobility and across all screens, the ROI should continue to improve. We believe mobility provides more context to advertisers in terms of where the users are and where they've been, which will allow for more accurate advertising."

Google's revenues jumped 19 percent from the year-ago period as income grew almost 14 percent to $3.23 billion. Net income was slightly down, however, from the previous quarter's $3.35 billion in profit. Motorola Mobile accounted for $998 million in revenue, holding steady from the previous year as a 7 percent contributor to Google's total quarterly revenue. Meanwhile, the weight and financial burden of Motorola Mobile on Google's books is growing. The unit's total loss jumped from $199 million a year ago to a $342 million bleed in the most recent quarter.

Paid clicks jumped 23 percent from a year ago and 4 percent from the previous quarter, while the average cost-per-click declined by 6 percent year-over-year and 2 percent from the previous quarter. Google ended the quarter with $54.4 billion in cash and 44,777 full-time employees.

The annual study of Fortune 500 company blogs and social media use by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has been published for 2013 indicating the largest increase in corporate blogs since 2008. Other statistics from the report:

77% of Fortune 500 companies have at least one Twitter accountConsumer Food Products and Specialty Retailers lead with Twitter adoptionFacebook, Google and Starbucks have the largest Twitter following with a combined 20,000,000 Twitter followers69% of Fortune 500 companies have a Facebook fan pageFacebook, Coca Cola and Walt Disney have the largest Facebook following with a combined 300 million fans69% of Fortune 500 companies have a YouTube account9% of�Fortune 500 companies have a Pinterest account35% of�Fortune 500 companies have an active Google+ account. 19% have Google+ accounts but are not active9% of�Fortune 500 companies have an Instagram account9% of Fortune 500 companies have a FourSquare account and only 1 (Walmart) in the top 1059% of Fortune 500 companies link to their social media accounts from the home page

Here is the full infographic�and report.

In Other Online Marketing News…

How Marketers Are Approaching Mobile in 2013: A new study from Chief Marketer reports that most marketers are integrating mobile in their marketing efforts including 76% that optimize email for mobile. However, only 40% are optimizing email landing pages for mobile. Source: MarketingProfs�

TV + Twitter = Sharknado. SyFy ran a TV movie about a tornado of sharks pummeling Los Angeles that attracted over 300,000 tweets during the broadcast. An additional 400,000 plus tweets went out leading up to the show and afterwards. Wil Wheaton live tweeted the show and it was retweeted over 10,000 times. Source: AllTwitter

Baby Boomers and seniors now spend more time online than watching television, according to a report by Ipsos and Google. Source: MarketingProfs

Where are B2B Multi-Channel Marketers Investing Most? A new study from Silverpop and Forrester reveals that B2B Marketers are invested more heavily than B2C in only one area of multi-channel marketing. Guess what it is? Source: MarketingProfs

From The Online Marketing Blog CommunityHere’s our favorite comment from this week’s posts:

How to Rock Content Marketing World 2013 � Six WaysJohn Ellis says: Fantastic post Lee. “Most people drift from session to session like sheep and sit passively hoping something the speaker says will wake them from the fog of last night�s networking.”

This is one of the biggest issues and I think it has a lot to do with the presenters as much as the attendees. Listening to someone drone on over a PPT can be horribly boring. Many presenters are simply regurgitating the same message wherever they go.

Research your presenters and watch clips of them in action. Find the ones that excite you, that speak to you. Stay away from the drones.

What�s Your Take?

Should all Fortune 500 companies have social profile links on their home pages? Did you Tweet while watching Sharknado? What, you didn’t watch Sharknado? That’s OK, neither did we

While search engine optimization (SEO) is already a multidimensional marketing initiative, adding an international component can quickly turn into a large-scale project that can border on being unwieldy, without proper planning or realistic expectations.

The Fundamentals are the Same

The good news for SEO professionals is that the tactics you employ for a domestic effort are still in play in international campaigns. All you will really be doing is adding additional factors to the decisions you make and the way you approach a long-term strategy.

For those who aren't quite experts, it's important to understand the fundamentals of SEO, which apply whether you're optimizing for one country or 100 countries, before you undertake an international SEO initiative. It is not the purpose of this article to provide general guidance on SEO (there are plenty of great articles about that topic on SEW already), but instead to highlight how to undertake a realistic international SEO campaign.

While there are several, the key point is that SEO is not a one-time project. It is an ongoing effort that evolves with changes in:

Industry sophistication (e.g., how well your competition is adopting SEO strategies and tactics).Search engine algorithms that are always in flux.Website user experience and technology trends that can interfere with optimization tactics.Shifts in consumer behavior and preferences (e.g., keywords and methods used by your audience).New Dimensions for International Efforts

As if that wasn't enough to keep track of, targeting multiple countries takes us beyond the tactics you employ for a solely domestic effort. Adding to these fundamentals, we now have an international component to factor in.

This means that there are several other components that can play a large role in your rankings, which may not be on your radar if you have only focused domestically in the past. A few of these include:

Web hosting locations.Domain extensions (e.g., the decision to use specific TLDs in your strategy).Page content languages.URL structures (e.g., using subdomains or subdirectories for pages in specific languages).Inbound links' country of origin.For long-term link building strategies, you should factor the blogging and social media habits and preferences of the country or countries you are targeting on an individual basis.

I encourage you to read up on these components to determine the impact that each will have.

Be Realistic with First Steps

To put this into perspective, this issue compounds with each additional country that you target. You can see how this can easily become a daunting task for a small marketing team that is given the assignment to optimize in 10 different countries.

The best approach is one that is both focused in scope and realistic in timing and effort. As they say, don't bite off more than you can chew.

Pick one or two countries to focus on that can be thought of as low-hanging fruit. You may have native speakers in your organization, you may be able to easily host a site in your target country, or get bloggers or other content creators to contribute links and articles from those places or many other factors. By focusing in this manner, you'll get much better results in a few places, instead of mediocre results across a variety of countries.

Also, be realistic in what can be accomplished within your timeframe and from a purely logistical standpoint. Don't make hosting in-country a key part of your strategy if you aren't sure your IT team will be able to make it happen.

Don't rely on as-yet-unknown content contributors to be a sole source of inbound links if you might not have the budget to deliver on that. Instead, include them as part of a medium-term or long-term plan, but put your efforts behind the things that you know you can do well right away. The key here is being comprehensive in everything that you do, and having a backup plan for the things that might not be possible just yet.

Be careful to learn how effective each of the tactics you are evaluating is relative to one another. You might want to create a quick table of these individual tactics and the potential benefits and costs. This is an easy way to guide your efforts and keep your priorities straight.

A holistic approach is always the best one when it comes to SEO (as in most things), but you may find moderate to good success by employing the low-hanging fruit in the short-term while you plan out your approach for the more difficult to employ.

Conclusion

A new international SEO initiative is an exciting undertaking, but can be a daunting task when you take factors such as locations, languages and many other elements into account. Your best success will come with that key combination of focus and realism, and your results will continue to grow as you fill out the pieces of your SEO strategy that might take longer to accomplish.

Google has had what it has called “comparison ads” for some time, but these comparison units are getting a new look in Google�s search results beginning today. Google hopes the change will better explain to searchers that comparison listings come from companies it has a commercial relationship with. It also highlights how three Google search products now seem to largely operate on a paid inclusion basis. Google was once a vocal opponent to paid inclusion programs.

“We�re changing the design layout of our hotel, flight, credit card and bank account results, which help users complete actions such as booking flights quickly and easily,” a Google spokesperson told us in a statement. “We�ve always disclosed that Google may be paid when a user completes such an action; we want to be clear and consistent in how we do that.”

The New Look

The comparison units appear in the US when people do these types of searches:

In the UK, the units only appear for financial products, specifically for�current accounts, savings accounts and credit cards.

Again, the units aren’t new. They’ve existed for over a year for some products. They’re simply getting a new format. Below is an example of the old-style look, which some may still see now:

Here�s an example of how they are changing to over the coming days:

In the new format, the background color that’s used for Google’s traditional AdWords units is gone. The comparison units also carry a “Sponsored” disclaimer rather than an “Ads” one, as with AdWords ads.�This seems part of Google’s positioning the new units as something different than ads.

Not Ads, Not Organic Listings But A “Third Kind Of Thing”

Indeed, even though Google�s called these “comparison ads” in the past, it pushed back on that label for them now. What are they called? We’ve yet to get a formal name for them. In talking with us about them today, Google referred to the units as�a “third type of thing” — not organic listings, and not ads but something in between.

Clicking on the comparison link will take users to a results page in the relevant vertical search product, be it Google Hotel Finder, Google Flight Search or Google Advisor.

The distinction between these and ads, Google told us, was that advertisers control the keywords, the copy and the links in AdWords. In the results generated by the comparison units, Google decides what listings get displayed and how they get displayed, based on aggregate data that advertisers provide. In most cases, Google gets paid for leads it sends.

While�the comparison ads site is still up�and shows the program as in beta, participation isn�t open to any advertiser as with AdWords, not does it seem likely to be.

Google says those who want to be in the flight area, or the hotel area or in the financial products area will either already be approached by the right team in Google or know the team to contact. In short, if you don�t know the right place to talk to, apparently you aren�t the right company for these types of ads.

Organic, Paid Placement & Paid Inclusion Listings

This “third Kind of thing” will sound familiar to veteran search marketers. It’s paid inclusion. For those new to the concept, a refresher.

For the most part, Google (as well as Bing) has two different types of search listings. The first are “editorial” or “natural” or “organic” listings, the “main” listings that people tend to think of as the search engine’s results. Google doesn’t charge for people to show up in this space. Its search algorithms try to determine the most relevant sites to list for any particular search.

There are also paid listings, the listing powered by AdWords, where advertisers bid against each other to appear above or to the right of the organic listings. Because these ads grew out of advertisers trying to gain prominent placement, they’ve historically been called “paid placement” ads, even though with Google, advertisers can’t guarantee that their ads will rank well for any particular term, even if they’re willing to pay the most. An ad algorithm takes payment along with overall relevancy into account.

Paid inclusion was once a popular way that the major search engines like Yahoo or Bing’s predecessor MSN Search charged sites to help increase the odds they might perform well within organic search results.

You couldn’t buy a top ranking, but you could pay to ensure more of your pages were gathered up or revisited on a regular basis. It was kind of like buying more tickets for a lottery. You aren’t guaranteed to win, but you can buy more chances.

Google was long the major search engine that stood against paid inclusion, even�calling out against paid inclusion�as part of its 2004 IPO filing. Microsoft and Ask, feeling the pressure, dropped their paid inclusion programs that year. Yahoo — the last holdout — dropped its program in 2009.

So what’s up with paid inclusion happening at Google, which fought against it before?

Paid Inclusion In The Vertical Space

It’s important to note that paid inclusion is not happening in Google’s main web search results. At the time Google fought against paid inclusion, that was largely where it was happening. Since then, paid inclusion has moved into the province of smaller specialty search engines, where it remains common. Other search engines in vertical spaces, like Kayak.com and Mint.com, include data from companies with which they have financial relationships. Even Bing does this.

Google has come close to paid inclusion in the past with some mixture of sponsored listings in things like�shopping�and�local�results, but in talking today with the company, it seems it may be closer to this for some newer search products than ever before, if it’s not already there. I’d argue that it is.

To be clear, Google may have “free” information listed in any of these areas because of data feeds it pulls in or some crawling it does of the web. But it was clear the intention for these products is really to be building a way to compare between services from companies that Google has a commercial relationship with. That�s a fairly big departure from Google�s traditional search products. Google News, for example, doesn’t only feature newspapers that purchase inclusion. Nor does Google Shopping only list merchants that pay to be considered.

Google Hotel Finder,�launched last year,�appears to be a hotel search engine�similar to how Google has a search engine for finding images or videos or web pages. But unlike those other search engines, from talking with Google, it seems most if not all the content in Google Hotel Finder is for companies that it has a commercial relationship with or hopes to have one with — a commercial relationship meaning Google gets paid for leads.

Google Flight Search�which�also launched last year�seems the same situation. Google was unclear about whether businesses were listed for free within the area or why some airlines had booking options or not, if that was only for those with commercial arrangements.

As for�Google Advisor�which�rolled up�various financial product searching tools last year, individual sections, such as�the credit card area, currently say that Google isn�t paid for offers shown. Yet this area powers the comparison units in Google that are expressly noted as sponsored.�Google told us the wording in Google Advisor is being updated, after we pointed out this mismatch.

Will More Paid Inclusion Come To Google?

Even though paid inclusion is fairly commonplace in the vertical space, it still feels somewhat surprising for Google to be doing it. Having a search tool for financial products using paid inclusion even goes directly against what Google’s founders said they disliked back in 2004, as part of the IPO�filing’s “Don’t Be Evil” section:

Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and�we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating.

It�makes me wonder if future Google vertical search products will go down this route. I’ll be following-up more with Google about this in the near future.

For some crazy reason, marketers, and others tasked with the decision to elevate awareness of the brand, have come to believe that investments in search engine optimization (SEO), public relations (PR), outbound marketing, or advertising, are independent functions. In fact, a surprising number of brands manage these functions without the benefit of integrated planning and execution. As a result, enormous opportunities to effectively orchestrate these efforts for maximum impact are lost, most especially organic search.

The data supporting organic search as the most effective way to reach new audiences is compelling.

The introduction of digital mediums seems to have diluted the integrated approach that has proven to deliver the best results long before the Internet became part of the marketing mix.

Because studies show the effectiveness of organic search in reaching new audiences, many will forgo the integrated approach in order to put all their eggs in the SEO basket, missing out on the most effective way to leverage that investment – integrating owned, earned and paid media to support organic search.

The Marketing Mix and Search

I have referenced the Owned, Earned and Paid Media grid many times since Forrester presented it in 2009 to demonstrate how integrated search, social media, the website, PR, content and advertising relate to the brand.

Image Credit: Forrester

Chances are very good that you've heard discussion about owned, earned, and paid media. You may have even seen this grid before. Now, let's look at how owned, earned, and paid can, and should be, leveraged to support SEO for performance in organic search.

Owned Media and SEO

Owned media includes the many assets the brand maintains control and management of. The website, blog/RSS feeds, social media profiles, updates, mobile apps, guest blogs, etc. Just about anything you can "put out there" without paying for eyeballs qualifies as owned media.

Optimization of Owned Media is Vital

If every one of these assets isn't optimized for search, you're missing the boat. Why? Internet users (your customers) conduct searches in places beyond the ever-changing environment of search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing, where the brand competes for visibility. They also search on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, etc., where your brand should be engaged in topics relevant to your unique selling proposition.

Bottom line: The more places the search engines see your brand legitimately engaged, the more authority you earn, which contributes to visibility and search engine rank.

The Quality Website

Google's Webmaster Central Blog has expanded the definition of search engine optimization to include marketing:

Good search engine optimization can also mean good marketing: thinking about creative ways to make a site more compelling, which can help with search engines as well as social media. The net result of making a great site is often greater awareness of that site on the web, which can translate into more people linking to or visiting a site".

Note the mention of social media as a means to gain "greater awareness of that on the web, which can translate into more people link to or visiting a site". These are the links Google is really looking for. We are led to believe that the prolific a brand's reach and engagement is on the web, the more authority the brand is expected to yield in search.

Social Media and Search

Social plays an indisputable role in search. For those stubbornly challenging this connection because search engines haven't come out and provided a definitive statement or hardline policy to validate haven't been in the search game long enough.

Search engines, especially Google, have a history of not disclosing exactly what queues their algorithms take from various factors. It is no longer about reading tea leaves to determine whether an integrated approach to social media and SEO will pay off. The best SEO professionals are continually testing, observing, and validating to form proactive search engine optimization methods, not just taking a page from everyone else's book.

Google, Yahoo and Bing have each published enough about how they view the "quality website", social media and content to justify an integrated approach, rather than the disjointed effort of SEO, social media and other digital efforts independently. We can then take queues from entities heavily invested in search.

For example, recently AOL (parent of TechCrunch, Huffington Post, MapQuest and other digital environments) morphed the role of Simon Heseltine, Director of SEO to "AOL Audience Development (SEO & Social)". Not to mention, SES, one of the marketing industry's leading search and social conferences, has revamped its SES San Francisco 2013 conference tracks to focus on owned, earned, and paid media. Coincidence?

Be a Leader Not a Follower

In search, it pays to be a leader, rather than a follower. Those actively pursuing opportunities in search as they emerge will always be ahead of the game when it comes to search.

If you aren't in the business of developing, testing, and analyzing performance trends of various SEO methods, aligning yourself with those on the leading edge of the industry will likely be worth any extra investment required to engage them.

You will have to determine whether you will color inside the lines, by abiding to practices recommended by the search engines with white hat SEO, or take risks for short-term rewards by ignoring the lines (as laid out by the webmaster guidelines published by search engines) with black hat SEO.

Either way, the umbrella of search has, and will continue to expand to include all digital assets and behavior.

Optimizing for Search

Those stuck in the outdated view of SEO as metadata and keywords with no relationship to social media are wasting money and not achieving optimum ROI from SEO as a best case scenario, or being left behind, unable to compete and losing new visitors and customers to competitors as a worst-case scenario.

A recent study by Searchmetrics illustrates qualities of well-ranking pages, validating a positive rank correlation between social and search, validating the requirement for sharing from an ownership perspective, and from an "earned media" perspective.

Note the high incidents of social interaction, compared to on-page, website SEO factors such as keywords in URL, domain, keywords in body content, etc. This data is compelling in supporting of the argument for social media as a vital aspect of SEO.

In addition to establishing quality profiles on dominant social platforms, now is the time for brands to "stake their claim" and establish a presence on as many social media platforms as possible, even if they invest the bulk of brand social media marketing and engagement. This prevents squatters (or competitors) from seizing brand-related profile names and URLs, provides the brand to at least appear on the platform, and preserve the destination for engagement, should the brand decide to leverage that platform in the future.

In the ever-changing landscape of social platforms, you never know whether that lesser-known environment could be acquired by a larger entity (as in the case of Facebook's acquisition of Instagram). The creation, and acquisition of, social media environments and tools is extremely active, as SocialNetworkingWatch.com reveals in its continual listing of social platform acquisitions.

Earned Media

Ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising, according to the Global Trust in Advertising report by Nielsen.

Earned media = love. The more love and attention you can attract from your customers (consumers, employees, media, partners, investors, etc.) the more authoritative the brand becomes to consumers and to search engines.

Take Google Maps for example. Google accepts reviews directly from users on Google Maps, which are then ranked automatically as demonstrated in the screen shot below:

Google Maps listings typically include reviews and a link to the brands Google+ Page. Conversely, those who fail to create that all-important Google Maps listing or Google+ Page lose the opportunity to appear twice at the top of the search engine results page, as demonstrated below:

Social Sentiment is Serious Business

You've likely hear the old adage, "It doesn't matter what they say as long as they spell my name right." This may be true in the world of public relations if all you want to do is gain notoriety or eyeballs. And at one time, it was even true in search. But times have changed when it comes to reputation as it relates to search.

What your audiences say about the brand is as important as who is saying it. How search engines leverage sentiment in search remains vague. However, we can be assured that sentiment matters.

In 2010 Google Fellow Amit Singhal explained that Google's "world-class sentiment analysis system" identifies negative sentiment, such as reviews, even if it may not effectively demote those results in SERPs. He goes on to explain that:

We cannot reveal the details of our solution—the underlying signals, data sources, and how we combined them to improve our rankings… We can say with reasonable confidence that being bad to customers is bad for business on Google. And we will continue to work hard towards a better search.

This is quite a validation that sentiment has, and will have on social media and search.

Reputation Management

Because a good read on social sentiment is sought by brands committed to identifying brand-related social activity and managing reputation, social media monitoring tools become valuable from a social perspective, as well as an SEO perspective. Sentiment140 provides a list of Twitter sentiment monitoring tools.

When it comes to monitoring the comprehensive social landscape, there are many solutions to choose from. Marketing professional Pam Dyer offers a list of 50 social monitoring tools that cover various aspects of the earned media landscape.

For optimum performance, those responsible for SEO should have an awareness and/or involvement in evaluating earned media to define action that can be taken, such as content development, social media, and website optimization to positively influence the impact of earned media on search engine performance.

Owned and Earned are Connected

Social media may be considered to be the most effective channel to earn favor with audiences. However, the connection between social media and owned assets impacts search the most.

On-site reviews, comments, photo sharing, conversations as well as Facebook Likes, Google +1's, and bookmarking of the website and its content (owned media) will most directly impact the quality of a website in the eyes of search engines.

The distribution, discussion, and reaction to that online content off-site, on social platforms, must be earned, requiring the creation of quality content. It all must be tightly integrated and planned strategically to gain full benefit and achieve that all-important top position in search.

Optimization is Key

One of the most overlooked aspects of social media is SMO (social media optimization). Most marketers are either un-informed, or un-interested in leveraging social to build qualified audiences. This requires the social media marketer to think like an SEO and use keywords and phrases that put the brand and the conversations in which the brand engages, in the path of target audiences. Since most marketers have not fully mastered SEO, they miss this opportunity and often result to direct mail, media campaigns, paid search or other costly programs.

Optimization is a vital part of each social media profile (an owned asset) as well as the updates, posts and comments posted on social platforms. The ability to execute social media at this level is what separates the pros from those who simply want to play on Facebook or tweet about random thoughts all day.

It is incumbent upon the brand to define the conversation and tone, leading audiences to the content that sparks engagement, favorable reaction and sharing. This is where the love is – not just from the marketplace, but from search engines.

This is more than theory. Some organizations have abandoned paid search completely for social media with measurable results.

"With nearly seven-figures invested in paid search media over the years, we netted nearly zero measurable results. However, our social media efforts always return on the order of 15 to 1 (and that is just the results we can measure)," said Brett Tabke, CEO of Pubcon

However, paid does have a place in the conversation. For years I have emphasized that paid search is most effective when used in promotional context that is highly targeted with strategic intent, rather than a primary traffic source. This can also be said in the context of supporting strategies to differentiate, compete or promote special offers that have yet to achieve visibility through other channels. This should always be planned and executed in the context of data to define and measure performance that supports the overall brand strategy and competitive position in the marketplace.

Organic, Authentic & Engaged

Essentially, when it comes to search, the more organic, real, authentic, and engaged the brand is, the better they will fare in search over the test of time.

RipoffReport, which is one of the most popular review sites for posting customer complaints, has recently launched a program called "Ripoff Report Verified," that acts like an insurance policy that protects you from negative reviews being posted.

The new program will give businesses a chance to resolve disputes in 14 days before negative reviews are posted for $89 a month. I recently spoke to a Ripoff Report sales rep on the phone and had further email correspondence to get more details on the program.

To be accepted as a Verified business, your company should not have any prior reviews in Ripoff Report. Once a verified business gets any negative complaints, they would be alerted via email about the negative reviews and will be able to discuss a resolution with the person that left the negative reviews.

Anyone can post a review on Ripoff Report from a fake email address at this point in time, as Ripoff Report does not currently verify email addresses. But with the new Verified program, if the reviewer used a fake email address, you may be in luck. If the reviewer used a fake email, they will never see the resolution request. If there is no response, the negative review would never get posted.

However, as the Ripoff Report rep explained, if the reviewer responds and "If the business makes every reasonable effort to satisfy the complaining consumer, Ripoff Report is very successful in persuading a consumer to be satisfied." So it seems that most likely they would not post the negative review if the business attempts to resolve the customer complaints!

Forbes recently published an article on Ripoff Report, quoting Ripoff Report owner Ed Magdeson, saying that they are using some outside sales firms to market this new product. He states that he is, "now in talks with several major credit card companies to market the service to their merchants, as well as four major auto related companies to put their dealers into the Verified directory."

Pros and Cons

I have mixed feelings about this program. I hate to see Ripoff Report profiting from negative reviews, especially if they are fake.

On one hand, I see this program as a positive step for businesses that may be at risk of getting negative reviews.

However, the negative thing about it is that your company name will show up in Google associated with the words "Ripoff Report." Some potential customers may not necessarily click to read the whole page and may assume you have bad reviews on Ripoff Report.

Before you engage in this program you should seriously consider the pros and cons.

However, I also feel that many companies would risk to lose a lot more if they do not obtain this insurance policy. SEO professionals, reputation management firms, or anyone who has any experience in how Ripoff Report works, knows how hard it is to prevent bad reviews on Ripoff Report from showing up on Google.

It is virtually impossible to remove Ripoff Report from Google. Once a review is listed, whether it is true or not, it will remain there forever. It may cost you thousands of dollars in legal fees and reputation management services to try and remove it, not to mention all the lost business you would have from the listing by the time it is removed.

To make matters worse, the removal efforts aren't guaranteed and may also fail, depending on the capabilities of the reputation management firm you choose to hire. So you should decide for yourself if it is worth paying $1,080/year for this insurance policy.

I should make clear that Ripoff Report did not want me to refer to this program as an "insurance policy." They told me that it is not an insurance policy, but rather a "customer service enhancement."

As a reputation management consultant, my company has been threatened twice to be posted on Ripoff Report in the last month, only because my staff contacted some businesses listed on Ripoff Report to offer them help with removal services. One company thought we had something to do with the appearance of the negative posting and assumed that we were trying to extort money from them.

Unfortunately, some unethical reputation management companies may do such things. Forbes recently published an Article about this titled "The Dark Side of Reputation Management."

Another company thought that we were trying to profit from his negative review that was hurting his business and was upset that we contacted him. He told us if we were so good we should drop the complete Ripoff Report site from Google!

It wasn't until we made both companies understand that they would face a big business defamation lawsuit if they posted negative info about us online, they agreed not to post. In both incidents, I almost had a heart attack. It would be the worst thing for a reputation management company to be listed on Ripoff Report, so in some ways I am glad that they are offering this insurance policy and I am seriously considering signing up my own company.

noindex: Not an Option

Is there any way to place a noindex tag on the Verified business page so the listing would not show up in Google? Ripoff Report said that isn't an option and it isn't something they foresee implementing.

After reviewing a few currently listed businesses, I noticed that Ripoff Report allows the posting of direct links to the company’s websites and social media sites with dofollow tags, meaning the links will count as a vote in Google. With Ripoff Report having so much PageRank power, this may be a good thing.

Examples of Some Companies Using the Program

There are a couple of examples of companies that have engaged in the program.

Upon typing their name in Google, the Ripoff Report Verified listing appeared on the first page with the words "Verified Trusted Business" next to the first company's name. However, the second company had slightly different text next to it: "Ripoff Report Verified."

You can see both examples below:

I was not exactly sure why the second example had the date August 30, 2012 next to it, since this is a new program. I asked Ripoff Report about this and they stated: "The MCA page was a prototype before Verified was finalized and offered on the webpage."

They emphasized that Ripoff Report has never expunged negative reviews, even though this page would appear to be in the format of a review page without any reviews on it.

The Corporate Advocacy Program

Ripoff Report has another program for businesses that already have negative reviews called Corporate Advocacy Program (CAP). It appears as if the second example may have had paid for the CAP program to resolve negative reviews.

The CAP program starts at minimum of $5,500, depending on the number of listings a business has. It does not insure removal of the negative reviews, but it will turn the negative review title tag into a positive title tag and then let the business provide some text content about their business, which would appear on top of the negative review on the same page.

The majority of the Ripoff Report Verified businesses currently listed in their directory are actually in the CAP program. You can search some of their names to see example of what the revised listing would look like.

Background on Ripoff Report

Ripoff Report has been in existence since the 1990s and is one of the first consumer reporting sites for consumer complaints. Magedson has stated that he is battling on behalf of customer rights, however many think he is unethically making money from many businesses or individuals that are falsely accused of wrong doing.

Magedson has created an extremely profitable company, charging thousands of dollars for his Corporate Advocacy Program, even though the reports aren't removed, but only inspected and titles modified and now he is gonna make even more money from his new program.

The Communication Decency Action Section 230 protects companies such as Ripoff Report against lawsuits from businesses requesting removals for false reviews. Ripoff Report has won many lawsuits due to this protection under the law.

In my opinion, the law is flawed. Although it is a good thing not to make public forums such as Ripoff Report liable for damages, there needs to be serious laws drafted to avoid false and fake negative reviews from being posted anonymously. But until then, businesses have very limited choices in protecting their reputation online and paying for Ripoff Report's Verified program may be a necessity.

Recap

Just to be clear, I still have mixed feelings whether businesses should engage in the verified program, so I am going to list a summary of the pros and cons and leave it up to you to decide:

Pros:

Avoid getting listed in Ripoff Report in the future, which could cost you thousands of dollars in business and/or reputation management services.You get links to your main site and social media sites, which are dofollow from a PR6 site.

Cons:

It will cost you $89.95/month, which could be costly for most small businesses.The listing does not allow noindex tags, which means it may show up high in Google for your brand, so some people might associate you with having a negative review on that site.Do you really want to pay a company with bad rep like Ripoff Report?

RipoffReport, which is one of the most popular review sites for posting customer complaints, has recently launched a program called "Ripoff Report Verified," that acts like an insurance policy that protects you from negative reviews being posted.

The new program will give businesses a chance to resolve disputes in 14 days before negative reviews are posted for $89 a month. I recently spoke to a Ripoff Report sales rep on the phone and had further email correspondence to get more details on the program.

To be accepted as a Verified business, your company should not have any prior reviews in Ripoff Report. Once a verified business gets any negative complaints, they would be alerted via email about the negative reviews and will be able to discuss a resolution with the person that left the negative reviews.

Anyone can post a review on Ripoff Report from a fake email address at this point in time, as Ripoff Report does not currently verify email addresses. But with the new Verified program, if the reviewer used a fake email address, you may be in luck. If the reviewer used a fake email, they will never see the resolution request. If there is no response, the negative review would never get posted.

However, as the Ripoff Report rep explained, if the reviewer responds and "If the business makes every reasonable effort to satisfy the complaining consumer, Ripoff Report is very successful in persuading a consumer to be satisfied." So it seems that most likely they would not post the negative review if the business attempts to resolve the customer complaints!

Forbes recently published an article on Ripoff Report, quoting Ripoff Report owner Ed Magdeson, saying that they are using some outside sales firms to market this new product. He states that he is, "now in talks with several major credit card companies to market the service to their merchants, as well as four major auto related companies to put their dealers into the Verified directory."

Pros and Cons

I have mixed feelings about this program. I hate to see Ripoff Report profiting from negative reviews, especially if they are fake.

On one hand, I see this program as a positive step for businesses that may be at risk of getting negative reviews.

However, the negative thing about it is that your company name will show up in Google associated with the words "Ripoff Report." Some potential customers may not necessarily click to read the whole page and may assume you have bad reviews on Ripoff Report.

Before you engage in this program you should seriously consider the pros and cons.

However, I also feel that many companies would risk to lose a lot more if they do not obtain this insurance policy. SEO professionals, reputation management firms, or anyone who has any experience in how Ripoff Report works, knows how hard it is to prevent bad reviews on Ripoff Report from showing up on Google.

It is virtually impossible to remove Ripoff Report from Google. Once a review is listed, whether it is true or not, it will remain there forever. It may cost you thousands of dollars in legal fees and reputation management services to try and remove it, not to mention all the lost business you would have from the listing by the time it is removed.

To make matters worse, the removal efforts aren't guaranteed and may also fail, depending on the capabilities of the reputation management firm you choose to hire. So you should decide for yourself if it is worth paying $1,080/year for this insurance policy.

I should make clear that Ripoff Report did not want me to refer to this program as an "insurance policy." They told me that it is not an insurance policy, but rather a "customer service enhancement."

As a reputation management consultant, my company has been threatened twice to be posted on Ripoff Report in the last month, only because my staff contacted some businesses listed on Ripoff Report to offer them help with removal services. One company thought we had something to do with the appearance of the negative posting and assumed that we were trying to extort money from them.

Unfortunately, some unethical reputation management companies may do such things. Forbes recently published an Article about this titled "The Dark Side of Reputation Management."

Another company thought that we were trying to profit from his negative review that was hurting his business and was upset that we contacted him. He told us if we were so good we should drop the complete Ripoff Report site from Google!

It wasn't until we made both companies understand that they would face a big business defamation lawsuit if they posted negative info about us online, they agreed not to post. In both incidents, I almost had a heart attack. It would be the worst thing for a reputation management company to be listed on Ripoff Report, so in some ways I am glad that they are offering this insurance policy and I am seriously considering signing up my own company.

noindex: Not an Option

Is there any way to place a noindex tag on the Verified business page so the listing would not show up in Google? Ripoff Report said that isn't an option and it isn't something they foresee implementing.

After reviewing a few currently listed businesses, I noticed that Ripoff Report allows the posting of direct links to the company’s websites and social media sites with dofollow tags, meaning the links will count as a vote in Google. With Ripoff Report having so much PageRank power, this may be a good thing.

Examples of Some Companies Using the Program

There are a couple of examples of companies that have engaged in the program.

Upon typing their name in Google, the Ripoff Report Verified listing appeared on the first page with the words "Verified Trusted Business" next to the first company's name. However, the second company had slightly different text next to it: "Ripoff Report Verified."

You can see both examples below:

I was not exactly sure why the second example had the date August 30, 2012 next to it, since this is a new program. I asked Ripoff Report about this and they stated: "The MCA page was a prototype before Verified was finalized and offered on the webpage."

They emphasized that Ripoff Report has never expunged negative reviews, even though this page would appear to be in the format of a review page without any reviews on it.

The Corporate Advocacy Program

Ripoff Report has another program for businesses that already have negative reviews called Corporate Advocacy Program (CAP). It appears as if the second example may have had paid for the CAP program to resolve negative reviews.

The CAP program starts at minimum of $5,500, depending on the number of listings a business has. It does not insure removal of the negative reviews, but it will turn the negative review title tag into a positive title tag and then let the business provide some text content about their business, which would appear on top of the negative review on the same page.

The majority of the Ripoff Report Verified businesses currently listed in their directory are actually in the CAP program. You can search some of their names to see example of what the revised listing would look like.

Background on Ripoff Report

Ripoff Report has been in existence since the 1990s and is one of the first consumer reporting sites for consumer complaints. Magedson has stated that he is battling on behalf of customer rights, however many think he is unethically making money from many businesses or individuals that are falsely accused of wrong doing.

Magedson has created an extremely profitable company, charging thousands of dollars for his Corporate Advocacy Program, even though the reports aren't removed, but only inspected and titles modified and now he is gonna make even more money from his new program.

The Communication Decency Action Section 230 protects companies such as Ripoff Report against lawsuits from businesses requesting removals for false reviews. Ripoff Report has won many lawsuits due to this protection under the law.

In my opinion, the law is flawed. Although it is a good thing not to make public forums such as Ripoff Report liable for damages, there needs to be serious laws drafted to avoid false and fake negative reviews from being posted anonymously. But until then, businesses have very limited choices in protecting their reputation online and paying for Ripoff Report's Verified program may be a necessity.

Recap

Just to be clear, I still have mixed feelings whether businesses should engage in the verified program, so I am going to list a summary of the pros and cons and leave it up to you to decide:

Pros:

Avoid getting listed in Ripoff Report in the future, which could cost you thousands of dollars in business and/or reputation management services.You get links to your main site and social media sites, which are dofollow from a PR6 site.

Cons:

It will cost you $89.95/month, which could be costly for most small businesses.The listing does not allow noindex tags, which means it may show up high in Google for your brand, so some people might associate you with having a negative review on that site.Do you really want to pay a company with bad rep like Ripoff Report?

After launching an overhauled Maps 2.0 app for Android last week, Google has announced an updated app for iOS devices, including a dedicated design for the iPad.

As with the Android release, the iOS update sports an overhauled interface with new discovery features that allow users to quickly browse and discover new places without having to type.

Google has also enhanced navigation features in the update, which aims to help users navigate around traffic.

But more importantly for Apple tablet users, the updated app has been specially designed so all the above features work better and more intuitively on a bigger screen.

"A dedicated tablet design brings all the features of Google Maps, including Street View, to a larger screen, which makes exploring the world from the comfort of your living room engaging and fun. Go from the Colosseum to your local pizza joint in just a few taps," Google said in a blog post.

Indoor mapping has also been added to the app to allow navigation around areas such as airports, shopping centers, and transit stations.

"The app now also allows users to see reports of problems on the road that you can tap to see incident details. While on the road, Google Maps will also alert you if a better route becomes available and reroute you to your destination faster."

As well as the new navigation and exploration tools, Google's Maps update also added the Zagat five star rating system that gives users a quicker read on how others have rated places like restaurants, bars, and cafes.

"For an expert's opinion, the Zagat badge of excellence and curated lists are integrated into search results so you can quickly spot the very best places," Google explained.

However, as part of the rollout of the new app, Google said last week that it will drop its Latitude tool next month, and will retire it from older versions August 9.

Other features that Google dropped into the update included an "offline maps" tool, creating "OK Maps" instead, which grants users access to maps offline by entering them into the search box when viewing the area they want for later.

The My Maps functionality is also not supported in Google's new Maps app release, but Google promised that the feature will return in future versions of the app.

Advertisers have flocked to Google AdWords Product Listing Ads (PLAs) since Google Shopping transitioned to a paid model last fall. A new study by AdGooroo�estimates more than 4 billion PLAs were displayed in the U.S. from March to May 2013, accounting for 5.9% (71.7 billion) of the total of ad impressions in that period.

But some advertisers are clearly more devoted to PLAs than others.�Eight of the top 20 PLA advertisers (highlighted in yellow in the chart below), actually racked up more impressions from PLAs than text ads, according to AdGooroo’s estimates. Mass retailers Toysrus.com and Staples.com garnered more impressions from PLAs than from text ads. Rakuten.com, formerly Buy.com, put the bulk of its PPC efforts into PLAs.

As for which advertisers took hold of the PLA market,�AdGooroo found that Walmart.com dominated PLA impressions, while eBay seems to have advertised everything — except, perhaps, the kitchen sink.

eBay advertised nearly half a million unique products from March through May 2013, nearly 4 times more than the runner-up, Walmart.com. Another marketplace, and relative newcomer to paid search, Etsy, ranked third for the number of unique products advertised.

Walmart.com, however, grabbed over 2 times more impressions than the next top advertiser, eBay. Here’s AdGooroo’s top 20 by impressions:

It will be interesting to watch and see if the eight advertisers that won more PLA than text ad impressions are on the leading edge of a trend to put more focus on product listing ads — and pull back on text ads. It also points to reasons why Google has been spotted testing new formats that give PLAs more exposure�and testing�AdWords image extensions to bring visual options to more advertisers.

Bing Ads has taken notice of Google’s success with PLAs and said they’ll launch their own version of Product Ads�at some point this summer.

This morning, I noticed a possible Panda update was rolling out, one that seemed to be “softer” in nature than the previous updates, where many webmasters who were originally hit by the algorithm are now claiming recovery.

Google has confirmed a Panda update is rolling out and this specific update is “more finely targeted.”

As you may remember, Google told us new Panda algorithms are being pushed out monthly over a ten day period. Google’s Matt Cutts did imply there was a bit of a delay in pushing out their monthly Panda refresh because they wanted to release signals that would soften the algorithm a bit.

Google confirmed with us that a Panda update is being released and said:

In the last few days we’ve been pushing out a new Panda update that incorporates new signals so it can be more finely targeted.

This is despite Google telling us they are unlikely to confirm future Panda updates.

There does seem to be a wide number of SEOs and webmasters claiming recoveries here. I certainly hope you have recovered.

We are not exactly sure what number of Panda updates were up to, if I had name this one, I’d label it version 26.

This morning, I noticed a possible Panda update was rolling out, one that seemed to be “softer” in nature than the previous updates, where many webmasters who were originally hit by the algorithm are now claiming recovery.

Google has confirmed a Panda update is rolling out and this specific update is “more finely targeted.”

As you may remember, Google told us new Panda algorithms are being pushed out monthly over a ten day period. Google’s Matt Cutts did imply there was a bit of a delay in pushing out their monthly Panda refresh because they wanted to release signals that would soften the algorithm a bit.

Google confirmed with us that a Panda update is being released and said:

In the last few days we’ve been pushing out a new Panda update that incorporates new signals so it can be more finely targeted.

This is despite Google telling us they are unlikely to confirm future Panda updates.

There does seem to be a wide number of SEOs and webmasters claiming recoveries here. I certainly hope you have recovered.

We are not exactly sure what number of Panda updates were up to, if I had name this one, I’d label it version 26.

Curating and sharing content can quickly become time consuming, but is more important than ever as social and SEO become ever-closer bedfellows.

Bookmarklets can save you time, sharing pages with one click – avoiding the tedium of firing up a new browser tab for each network or finding an on-page social button. They look like bookmarks in your browser's bookmark bar or folder, but are in fact are small pieces of Javascript that help you get things done more quickly.

Most of the major social networks have official bookmarklets you can add to your browser:

Google+ doesn't have an official bookmarklet (yet) but Digital Inspiration have created two – one to +1 a webpage, the other to share to your Google+ Circles.

You don't have to use these bookmarklets to share to your own networks of course – if you're logged in as a brand you manage social activity for, you can post as that identity. It's worth checking "who" you are logged in as before you post, to avoid sharing irrelevant content to the wrong audience.

Bookmarklets are useful for a lot more than social sharing. Many of the "reading list" sites that help you curate lists of articles to go back to or view them in a "magazine" format on your tablet or phone also have bookmarklets – ideal for adding to your browser. Readability and Instapaper are just two examples.

Many note taking services also offer a bookmarklet (e.g., Evernote and some blogging software and hosting solutions). For example "Press This" allows you to quickly post to a Wordpress blog, and Blogger.com has a bookmarklet called "BlogThis!".

There are many other bookmarklets out there – page translations from Microsoft, URL shortening with Bitly and lots of other uses. There are a few sites listing them:

Many sites also list them in the "tools" section of the site, often linked to from the homepage footer. If you find the bookmarklet you need doesn't exist, create your own – Matt Cutts, Better Explained and Smashing Magazine all have tutorials explaining how.

Webmasters have been watching for Penguin 2.0 to hit the Google search results since Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts first announced that there would be the next generation of Penguin in March. Cutts officially announced that Penguin 2.0 is rolling out late Wednesday afternoon on "This Week in Google".

"It's gonna have a pretty big impact on web spam," Cutts said on the show. "It's a brand new generation of algorithms. The previous iteration of Penguin would essentinally only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper and has a really big impact in certain small areas."

In a new blog post, Cutts added more details on Penguin 2.0, saying that the rollout is now complete and affects 2.3 percent of English-U.S. queries, and that it affects non-English queries as well. Cutts wrote:

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.

Webmasters first got a hint that the next generation of Penguin was imminent when back on May 10 Cutts said on Twitter, “we do expect to roll out Penguin 2.0 (next generation of Penguin) sometime in the next few weeks though.”

Then in a Google Webmaster Help video, Cutts went into more detail on what Penguin 2.0 would bring, along with what new changes webmasters can expect over the coming months with regards to Google search results.

He detailed that the new Penguin was specifically going to target black hat spam, but would be a significantly larger impact on spam than the original Penguin and subsequent Penguin updates have had.

Google's initial Penguin update originally rolled out in April 2012, and was followed by two data refreshes of the algorithm last year – in May and October.

Twitter is full of people commenting on the new Penguin 2.0, and there should be more information in the coming hours and days as webmasters compare SERPs that have been affected and what kinds of spam specifically got targeted by this new update.

Let us know if you've seen any significant changes, or if the update has helped or hurt your traffic/rankings in the comments.

UPDATE: Google has set up a Penguin Spam Report form.

Learn More: Google PenguinThe Myth of Content Marketing, the New SEO & Penguin 2.0Google Penguin 2013: How to Evolve Link Building into Real SEOPenguin 2.0 Forewarning: The Google Perspective on LinksGoogle Penguin, the Second (Major) Coming: How to PrepareGoogle Penguin Tightens the Noose on Manipulative Link Profiles [Report]

As I covered in my article about Google’s new look, while the new design appears to have been widely accepted without complaint, there are some who want “old” or “Classic Google” back. Google tells me that’s not going to happen. But there is an unofficial way to force the old look to appear, for those who dislike the change.

Given that millions of people — heck, hundreds of millions of people — have used Google since the new look appeared last Wednesday, there’s been virtually no outcry about it. No “I hate Google’s new look” group on Facebook getting tons of attention. No widespread media reporting of complaints. No massive blogger outcry as we saw when the now-defunct SearchWiki launched at the end of November 2008.

Personally, I love the new design. Even if others don’t love it, the masses sure don’t seem to hate it. Or if they do hate it, they’re quiet about it, mostly.

The only real outcry I’ve found is a long thread a reader pointed me to in Google’s own help forums, where people are begging for a way to get back to the old design. I also found another long thread here. Some selected comments:

For the love of God, PLEASE give us the option of going back to the old version. Simplistic used to be what made google great. But the new cluttered look feels cramped. I’m only looking at the middle pane with the results anyway. If you want to refine the search or what have you, that’s what the advanced button is for.

Why is it so hard to simply give users an option to hide the sidebar.� We don’t need the clutter.� I never ever ever utilized the “Show Options” before, but now you are going to force it down my throat?

Wow…I love how Google has contradicted everything the site was founded on…I love that after all these years they give in, and conform to greedy corporations (it was inevitable). If this layout does not change, I will not be using Google. The only reason I used Google in the first place is because they gave the community and un-cluttered, simple to use, simple search engine, rather than give us options in a sidebar that we didn’t ask for. You Google, as a corporation, have now discredited yourselves by contradicting the whole purpose of the site in its entirety.

Just give me the possibility to turn it off … and I’m happy.

So how about it? Will Google provide an option to turn off the new look? I asked on Friday afternoon and got an answer back on Saturday from Google spokesperson Nate Tyler:

We’re not offering a way to revert back to the old design.

That’s about what I expected. When Google’s had design changes in the past that people have disliked, it has generally stuck by its guns, warning that if Google provides opt-out options, people never get used to new features that they later grow to love. As I covered when this issue came up during the SearchWiki complaints:

But why not just let people opt-out if they want to, as they can opt-out from other Google products � or how they can use the search preferences page to control number of results shown, popping-open search listings in their own windows, enabling subscribed links and other options.

“While users don�t have the option of turning off SearchWiki, they do have the option not to use the feature. By turning off the feature entirely, people will never get used to the new offering or see how it might be useful to them. We encourage people to try it out,” Dupont said.

I suppose. To some degree, we saw this after Google Universal Search rolled out last year. Some people kept asking for a way to turn it off. Today, I rarely hear that voiced.

Google personalized search is a better example. Some people � especially search marketers � wanted a way to toggle it on or off. Google didn�t care. At best, it advised a way to hack out the URL as a way to do it. Various third party tools are out there that allow this, as well.

Basically, in my experience, Google won’t let you override things it considers crucial to its own bottom line. Google has viewed things like Universal Search, SearchWiki and now its new look as so essential to a good user experience that doesn’t allow users to override them.

It could. Easily. Indeed, want to have 100 results at a time? That’s long been a permanent option you can enable using Search Settings. But want “Classic” Google? Adding a similar option would probably be easy to do. Google just doesn’t want to do it. And I still find that a shame, not to give some users the choice. At the very least, providing an option would allow a small number of Google users to take their time to grow used to the new look that supposedly they’ll love over time.

It might also be less embarrassing if Google decides it has made a mistake, as in the case of SearchWiki. Over and over, we were told the testing proved people love it. And yet in the end, Google killed the feature based on feedback that people didn’t like it.

Still, there’s some hope for those who like Classic Google. Bookmark this link:

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all

This tip came from How to access the old Google Search. No hacks or scripts required over at The Next Web, and it works great. You’ll get all the search options shown in the new look, except these remain hidden within a left column that only appears when you want it (as things used to work, explained more here).

Facebook has blurred the lines between paid advertising and organic posts by putting Promoted Posts directly in a user’s News Feed. For some brands that have been getting lost in the speedy shuffle of news feeds, this is a long needed Facebook advertising option.

Also notable is that Community Managers now have access to rudimentary Promoted Post preset ad placement tools inline on the brand page while logged in as admin.

Before you turn on promoted posts and call it a day, there are few things marketers should know before forking over their media spend.

1. Promoting Posts Feature Limited by Time

Once a post is shared on a Page’s Timeline Community Managers have the option to promote posts at $10, $20, or $30, will run for three days and are auto-optimized by for CPM.

Take note, this feature is only available shortly after you post. Attempting to go back and promote older posts to push to users’ News Feeds to Promote Posts won't work.

2. Re-Name Posts in Ads Management Platform For Easy Reference

Facebook auto-generates the name of the ad with the post ID number. Therefore, it is essential, if only for your own sanity, to re-name the ad upon creation to easily go-back and reference.

While changing the ad name for the promoted post, check the targeting. Facebook, by default, targets not only the U.S., but a whole slew of other, potentially irrelevant countries from the Ukraine to Indonesia. Whoa.

4. Auto Post – Consider Yourself Warned

Take care not to get too click-happy in the ad interface, Facebook now has an option to “Always promote my most recent post.” This may be a great option for some Facebook marketers, but it’s also no doubt a way to blow through media spend quickly.

Facebook’s new promoted posts are an excellent way to buy your posts way into more user’s news feeds and drive visits to your content. This test resulted in a $0.35 per click, not too shabby.

What are your thoughts about Promoted Posts, have you tried them yet? What has been your experience?

Just a few days ago, we reported that Google Places had been swallowed up by Google+ Local Pages, as the search giant continues expanding into new revenue sources. Social, local, and mobile are definitely their focus and it is even more evident in Google’s latest rumored project, a small business service.

WSJ.com reports Google plans to have the project launch as early as July, citing “a person familiar with the matter.” At one point, they say, the service was called Business Builder and it will combine several internal and recently acquired products and services under one umbrella to draw small business users in – possibly including Google Offers, Google Wallet, Punchd, TalkBin, and AdWords Express.

Local is fast becoming the Holy Grail for companies reliant on ad revenue and competition is stiff, with companies like Google and Facebook leading the charge. Facebook reported $3.1 billion in advertising revenue for 2011, a far cry from Google’s $37.9 billion, 96 percent of which comes from advertising. In display advertising alone though, Facebook is expected to dominate this year, raking in $2.6 billion to Google's $2.5 billion in display ad revenues. By the end of 2013, Google will hold a $3.7 billion to $3.3 billion lead over Facebook for display ads, according to eMarketer.

Local advertising spend is expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 2.6 percent between 2011 and 2016, with revenues climbing from around $132 billion to more than $150 billion, according to local media space advisory group BIA Kelsey. Clearly, online local advertising is big business for the reigning tech giants.

Google+ is central to this new project’s success, which makes sense given the recent Places/Pages overhaul that saw Zagat’s reviews incorporated into the business Pages mix. More importantly, all Google local business listings will be merged and used across search, Maps, mobile and Google+.

In describing Google’s vision for this new project, WSJ reports:

When shoppers visit these businesses, Google wants them to use their Internet-connected phones like a digital wallet, earning loyalty points and making payments at stores that sign up for Google's new services. In turn, Google is hoping stores and other businesses will use their new Google+ pages to communicate with customers, such as by showing them special offers. And it hopes to persuade them to sign up for other Google products.

We’ve already seen elements of Google’s plan to get more small businesses online – and spending budget in AdWords – in action, with free website programs like NewYorkGetOnline, a geo-targeted part of the broader Get Your Business Online program.

Though Google refused to confirm or deny the specifics of any upcoming initiatives, a spokesperson said in a statement, "Helping local business is a big part of our focus at Google, whether it is connecting shoppers with the right store nearby or helping merchants attract and retain customers. In local, our vision is not a one-size-fits-all product, but a range of flexible solutions that make the Web work for all local businesses."

Google has warned webmasters many times about the dangers of using manipulative or deceptive behavior. Now Google has issued a special warning regarding a practice where a website inserts new pages into a user's browsing history.

While deceptive behavior has long been against Google's quality guidelines, for them to issue a special warning about manipulative or deceptive behavior, it means that likely they've seen a giant upswing in the number of users encountering this practice.

For example, when users click on a web page from the Google search results, but don't find what they were looking for on that page, normally they would click the back button and return to Google's search results. However, some users are instead being taken to a spoof search results page that is actually entirely advertisements, such as this:

This is something I have seen with a lot more frequency lately, and Google stance is that a website utilizing this practice could have manual action taken against it, including removal of the offending sites from the Google search index.

The idea of making online content that is useful to people as well as easy to find and share applies to any organization whether it’s a B2B software company, a non-profit association or a government organization. There’s so much information being produced and promoted plus a growing array options for consuming content that standing out can be a real challenge.

I recently did a Google+ Hangout with a group of Chamber of Commerce executives from all over the U.S. talking about the role of content in marketing for small businesses. We dug into the fundamentals of what to talk about and how it can create a mutual benefit for SMBs and their customers. We also discussed the notion of empathy for our audiences and how important it is to invest in quality content as well as efforts to make that content easy to find and share.

Here’s a “cliff notes” version for our conversation, which was organized and led by Frank J. Kenny:

What’s more important, content or SEO?

Content is the reason search engines exist and if they didn’t, content would still be what people use to connect online.

In the modern digital marketing mix, it’s a holistic and customer centric approach that wins.�That involves objectives and planning but also an understanding of the topics that matter to customers through the buying journey. Knowing how customers seek out answers online and what content formats they prefer is important too. Understanding how to create useful, entertaining information that moves the buyer along from awareness to purchase is how investments in content pay off.

SEO plays a role for discovery across the entire sales cycle to surface brand information that helps buyers come to know your company as the “best answer” to their problem.

By understanding how your target audience Discovers, Consumes and Acts on information, we can optimize to Attract, Engage and Convert them as customers.

How do you decide what to write and how much is enough?

Intuitively, content creation should come from a place of passion about what your company stands for and how it helps customers. There are many reasons people buy a product or service and that translates into stories to be told. As long as different people buy a company’s products and services for different reasons or applications, there will be reasons to create content.

I think it’s important to understand that Content Marketing is not a project. It’s a commitment to your customers that you’re there to help them get the information they need to feel confident about buying from you.

Logistically, content should be planned in an editorial calendar that focuses on the topics, frequency and channels that matter most to potential customers and any other audience you’re trying to connect with: existing customers, the media and industry influencers.

Crawl, walk, run and base the transitions on your goals, resources and monitoring of what’s working and what’s not. Always be optimizing!

How does social media work with search and where does content fit?

I like to say SEO is peanut butter, Social Media is the jelly and content is the bread that holds it all together. Except this sandwich is in more than one dimension.

Content is where your stories get told and both SEO and social media are ways to amplify the reach and engagement of those stories. Insights from SEO keyword research can review topics in demand that you should probably write about to attract customers that are actively looking. At the same time, monitoring social media can reveal topics and trends that can drive your editorial plan by covering issues, topics and especially, answering questions that your customers and buyers are interested in.

Understanding customers, researching relevant keywords, planning, creating, optimizing and promoting content are all part of a process that any small business owner can begin to tackle through a blog or contributing articles to other blogs and industry publications. Think about what kinds of questions customers have when they buy and then create content with answers that is easy to find and compelling to share. Become the best answer for what your business is best at, make it easy to buy and your sales will grow. �That’s a win for everyone.

Google has warned webmasters many times about the dangers of using manipulative or deceptive behavior. Now Google has issued a special warning regarding a practice where a website inserts new pages into a user's browsing history.

While deceptive behavior has long been against Google's quality guidelines, for them to issue a special warning about manipulative or deceptive behavior, it means that likely they've seen a giant upswing in the number of users encountering this practice.

For example, when users click on a web page from the Google search results, but don't find what they were looking for on that page, normally they would click the back button and return to Google's search results. However, some users are instead being taken to a spoof search results page that is actually entirely advertisements, such as this:

This is something I have seen with a lot more frequency lately, and Google stance is that a website utilizing this practice could have manual action taken against it, including removal of the offending sites from the Google search index.

At Google I/O this week Google introduced spoken search results, which mimic Siri’s functionality on the iPhone. Siri had been a major point of differentiation between Android handsets and the iPhone, despite Google’s preexisting voice search.

The new Google female voice actually sounds less like a machine and more natural than Siri. And there are already a number of video demos favorably comparing Google’s “Voice Assistant”�to Siri (see below). Since Google didn’t give her a name (or not one that we’ve heard yet), I’ll call her “JB” for Jelly Bean.

The following side-by-side video below compares JB to Siri (on iOS 6). The video shows that JB is faster in almost every instance and notes the more natural sound of the JB voice vs. Siri.

Google would appear then to have “caught up.” In fact it appears that JB is better than the yet-to-be released iOS 6 version of Siri in some respects. That’s the way it might seem to lots of tech bloggers and journalists who do quick tests. But it’s not exactly correct to say that Google has replicated Siri’s capabilities (or exceeded them).

Siri was developed by SRI International and spun out as a company, which was then acquired by Apple. Google developed its own voice search and speech recognition assets in house, using the now shuttered GOOG-411 to tune its speech recognizers.

But Siri isn’t really “voice search.” Siri is a version of “artificial intelligence” with a voice front end, provided by Nuance. Google’s voice search is speech-to-text and (now) text-to-speech on top of Google’s Knowledge Graph and search index. There’s a difference, although it may not be readily apparent from certain basic queries.

Google has used its index, its speed and its voice assets to bring a Siri-like experience to Jelly Bean Android devices. Make no mistake, it’s a very good experience and for most people it will close the gap between Android and Siri-powered iOS devices. But while Google search may be getting somewhat more “semantic” Google still doesn’t truly “understand” what �you’re asking.

JB is really good at producing facts, initiating calls, getting local data, sending texts and emails. In terms of the way that most people currently use Siri (send texts, emails, etc.) there won’t be much if any perceived difference.

JB is very much a “next gen” version of what Google was doing with voice input combined with a nice treatment of search results in the form of new graphical “cards.” However there’s more “under the hood” with Siri.

Google’s assistant will perform as well or, in a few cases, better than Siri to quickly discover information and accomplish specific kinds of tasks: weather, currency�conversions, word definitions, directions, email and texts. However JB performs “single functions.” It doesn’t interact or have a dialog with you.

Android enthusiasts will argue this simply removes inefficiency or lag time. However Siri has the capacity to engage in multi-stage “conversations” and ask clarifying questions.This capability is not shown across all Siri functions but does appear, for example, in sending emails and texts.

In comparing the two systems it was most apparent in the context of calendaring meetings, which JB right now cannot do at all (or at least I couldn’t get it to do). Siri will tell you there’s a conflict at a particular time and ask you whether you want to continue to schedule the appointment.

Another minor example: both systems will set an alarm for you; however you can ask Siri to “cancel my alarm” or a specific alarm if there are multiple alarms set. JB cannot cancel your alarm, once set. You must go in and cancel it manually. There are some other examples, which may look like “edge cases,” where Siri’s “intelligence” is evident vs. JB.

JB is effectively an enhanced version of Google Voice Actions with text-to-speech output. However, as mentioned, in the majority of use cases, and certainly on first blush, Google appears to have matched Siri’s capabilities. What’s more, Google’s vast search index gives it an edge in some situations.

When Siri doesn’t know an answer it asks if you want to “search the web.” Google doesn’t have to do that; it simply delivers results from its index, which eliminates a step and gets you information more quickly.

Apple’s challenge now is to more fully develop and exploit Siri’s capabilities to reestablish differentiation, which Jelly Bean largely seems to nullify.